55 Responses

P.S. Some day — not judging ANYBODY — do a story on how/why we ignore stories in front of us. A serious local explanation/coverage, not an entertainment thing. Us. Thanks for letting me say what I think!

The citizens of Albany and of all the cities throughout the United States must be made aware that maintenance is the key to prevent urban decay. Families who rent must be held responsible for maintenance: if a window is broken, fix it! Trash and garbage must not ferment in the alley way, basement, or in the back yard. Many of these citizens believe that the landlord is responsible for most of the problems that arise in rented buildings. Most of the problems are created by the residents and they must remendy this situation. Don’t blame the landlord.

I agree wholeheartedly JohnQ,landlords aren’t the one who leave the trash out or bust holes in the sheetrock and then to try to evict them,whole other story,some landlords get so disgusted by the process they would rather leave a building vacant than go through the hassle of fixing the things a prior tenant broke just to see the next come in and repeat the process and not pay the rent.Its too bad some of the detail in some of the buildings is remarkable.

Listen it is simple. These run down houses are an just rodent filled rat houses. No one is taking care of them and they are just ugly to the eye. And anyone who says that the low income have to deal with the issues of whats gonna happen. Those low income being mostly unemployed dont even take the time to clean their own garbage infront of their own house. Why should we care so much about those people when they are the ones who let these houses go to hell in the first place?

I left Albany at the age of 17 and joined the armed services. 23 years later I have returned. I live downtown Albany. I’m ashamed of what HAS NOT been done over the past 23 years. Can we ask for a refund from all the politicians who have been paid from the tax-payers and have not really performed? I mean, did they even show up for work?

What you see when you first get to Albany is the buildings located in the port district; abandoned and boarded…oh, it’s the last thing you see when you leave Albany too. Where is OUR PRIDE???

What I have observed since living here…Police in their cruisers making provocative gestures towards women walking (corner lark & madison) – police cruisers talking on cell phones (against the law), police cruisers taking an illegal “right on red” (obviously they weren’t in any hurry, their speed was less than 5mph. Lark Fest- two uniformed officers parking RIGHT IN FRONT of a fire hydrant in FRONT of my home then proceeded to patrol Lark Fest. Oh, and let’s NOT forget to Officer caught sleeping in her cruiser one morning @ 6am in a back parking lot in Center Sq. I had to ask the Officer if SHE needed assistance.

Seems we should start with the police department encouraging then mandating enforcement within the ranks. I’d start at the top though, removing those individuals who have limited capacity. I mean, look at the people APD is hiring. Short, fat & out of shape (ok, not all but some)! Regardless, the morale in APD is OUTRAGEOUS!

I have contacted APD on 5 different occasions – One time I received a call back from a Detective (after 5th incident); vandalism to my auto. While I had no hard evidence of who may have done this to my new auto, I know who has been doing this and I provided this info! Yet, APD never even questioned the individual.

We The People have the power at the polls. Let’s measure political campaign promises against actual results. LET’S HOLD our ELECTED Official(s) accountable. Perform or RESIGN!

Mayor Jennings, thank you for your motivation. Now let’s get it cleaned up after you have successfully brokered the deal to get these buildings habitable or removed altogether…tired of empty promises!!

it isnt about political parties. its about greed, and power. yes, of course, the albany dem machine is legendary. but hardly democratic anymore. the tan man only wants to stay mayor so he can stay mayor. imagine what a great place this would be if jack mceneny were mayor. but the jennings people took care of that. face it, this is a one party town. they do what they want as long as they benefit. albany is falling apart. repave MY sidewalks in pine hills? no, they probably need them to stay historic, with all the crumbling cement, etc. besides, it all gets filled in with ice as soon as we have winter weather, so we wont fall on the cracks, just slip on the sidewalks that are never shovelled. i dont want to leave. but it is getting so that it isnt safe, clean or pleasant these days. do us a favor mayor jerry … retire.

Looks like the decades of liberalism are paying off with Not one slum like in the 20′s or 30′s BUT THREE SLUMS. I noticed that everyone in the story was “waiting” to be “provided” with affordable housing. The reason that the place is a slum is because their ancestors were provided something for nothing and left exactly what they provided for the next generation NOTHING

My wife and I have been owner-occupied home-owners and landlords in the South End for 14 years. We like the proximity and commuting distant to our jobs. We like the fact that we pay more than lip service to supporting Albany and providing affordable Housing. We are both late ’70′s graduate’s of the University at Albany. Both transplanted New York(City)ers. Over the years it has been hard to maintain that positive attitude as the neighborhoods have changed.
In response to ‘Johnny’ the South End and the Port district has been going down since ESP was built. The traffic patterns changed and then the local economies. The South End has become a dumping ground for (St. Peters) Drug Rehab Centers and Half-way Houses people re-connecting to the community from the Federal prison system.
The issue of abanded houses and absentee landlords is not knew. To his credit until Mayor Jennings came along I was embaraseed to admit to my co-workers that I lived in Albany. Most of them only saw the Northern Blvd Cooridor between Clinton and Livingston leading to I-90. It was row after row of abandoned and boarded up buildings on both sides. People would joke that they should keep driving thru the area if they had car problems. Mayor Corning and the Ward leaders ( N. Brace) that kept him in office had no ptoblem with that perception of Arbor Hill. It’s been cleaned up to a degreee but there is more to do. More property owners are being held accountable. To say nothing has been done is mistating the facts.

As usual, I anticipated the Sunday Times Union for an article by you. This week I did not have to look far [smile]. I must admit that I was a bit saddened after reading your article today. I thought how wonderful it would be if the local residents of the targeted neighborholds were provided with a forum by the mayor to provide a vision for what the neighborhoods would look like and what contributions they would provide to the city’s progress if there were no limitations. A dream vision maight be able to offer some direction for positive change. [Maybe this has already happended.] There is so much history in Albany, particularly relevant to the African American Freedom Journey, that it could serve as a starting point for heritage tourist and educational inspirations for the youths. Well, I had to get it off my chest [smile].

As a young boy in the 60â€™s, I remember the times of shopping with my mother, either Downtown via the â€œBâ€ Beltline or walking over to Central Avenue and maybe even doing lunch. I also remember my first movie we walked to at the Palace Theater, 101 Dalmatians. I recall several different occasions when situations occurred, you could walk to your neighborhood doctors or dentist office. There are a couple of incidents that Iâ€™ll always remember, once I did what I thought at the time was the “worst day of my life” I had taken a Matchbox car from Woolworthâ€™s department store without telling my mother. Well, she found out and walked me over to a neighborâ€™s house, this neighbor turned out to be an Albany police officer, who read me the â€œriot actâ€ then back to the store it was to apologize to the store clerk. The second incident happened when my mother caught me playing with matches, around the corner we went to talk to another neighbor who was an Albany Fireman, he also read me the â€œriot actâ€ I guess you could say my mother was parenting. The news on television and the papers are making me aware that parents today arenâ€™t doing the right thing. They seem to look the other way and blame everyone else. Maybe if the Mayor can get his Police Officers and Firefighters, as well as all Department Heads and deputies to live in the city, we can rebuild are neighborhoods, mentally, emotionally and physically!

It seems as if Albany is the worst of towns and the best of towns. Many parts of our city are historically significant and the stock of housing is equal in architectual beauty to any city in the United States. We need only to mention the 19th and early 20th century houses on State Street, Willet Street and the Center Square Neighborhood. Indeed, the Pastures Neighborhood should be on the National Register of Historic Places for its early 19th century houses. Marion Avenue houses can rival any similar style of architecture. Even our public buildings from the State Capitol, Education Building and City Hall to the bank, schools and churches are magnificent.

On the other hand we have the decrepit, dilapidated, disgusting and disappointing houses as described in the TImes Union. I have been a life long resident of Albany, a student of its history and its architecture and I am unhappy with the dichotomy that we have in our city.

We can say its a contemporary problem but that is far from reality. Albany has let its old buildings decay from its earliest years. We have no buildings from our early Dutch heritage. Most of the mansions of the colonial period are gone. The great Victorians are almost nonexistent.

Perhaps the Rockefeller years made it acceptable to destroy the architecture of Albany and erect an edifice to Nelson’s memory.

It may be too late to really save anything worthwhile in Albany but we should try and this revealing article by the Times Union is what is necessary.

“Brought to you by Gerald Jennings, Mayor and the City of Albany.” Why does a shell get bought for $30k in Arbor Hill and then be assessed for $5000. Besides taxing the properties, Gerald should follow through with clearing their snow and then billing the absentees. Gerry, just don’t have the snow cleared by whoever demolished all the granite curbing and stamped concrete (that now looks like concrete)last year.

In the late 1960′s and early 1970′s, what is now called “Center Square” or the “Lark St BID (Business Improvement District)” was filled with buildings which had been abandoned, neglected and could be used for a wide variety of uses. Business and residential. Many impoverished, though peaceful and law-abiding, people lived there without the amount of homelessness as it exists today. The City of Albany operated public baths for those who had need of them.

Federal housing funds became available and many “boomer/yuppies” were able to gain title to refurbished homes which were heavily subsidized with federal dollars and with years of property and school tax abatement. They were only required to live in the residence during the early years of tax-payer funded gentrification.

In the 1980′s, the Reagan Administration cut these federal funds so they were much less available. Gentrification slowed as a result.

Still there was a great many new middle class home-owners who could have stayed and stabilized the city by their presence. But when they married and began to have children of their own, the City of Albany was no longer a “fit place to live”. For them. They sold their tax-payer funded homes to absentee landlords which began a new cycle of “malign” neglect. Since middle class married couples with school aged children abandoned the City of Albany, the landlords had to settle for tenants who were not so well behaved or at all “family” oriented. Renting to the poor, as before, was not an option as it would not pay the mortgage. Many of these new tenants were also career criminals who could afford to pay for higher rents with their ill-gotten gains. Using their rented apartments as venues for their criminal activity.

Absentee landlords got their “cut”, under the table and tax-free, while pretending to not know. Then the targeting, threatening and harassment of the neighboring law-abiding resident homeowners, by the criminals and some absentee landlords, began. In earnest. Resulting in more middle-class flight from the City of Albany. This would also include senior resident homeowners, many of whom found themselves alone, unarmed, frail and without an effective police response to protect them. Most especially, if and when they might report criminal activity.

I kept thinking (and hoping) that those born after 1980 would participate in a resurgent interest in urban homesteading which was popular from 1973-88. No such luck. Thus far. And who can blame them? When it means risking the lives, health and futures of themselves, their spouses and their children. Keep the prayers coming folks! Only divine intervention can solve these many problems now. Since they were caused by the unGodly, over-educated, schizophrenic, extreme left-wing, insurgent elements which won control of Albany City government at the end of 1993.

My mother-in-law passed away in April 2006, after living for many years on her Social Security and a very small pension from Albany County. She left as her entire estate a run-down two-family house on Elizabeth Street in Albany’s South End.

My husband and I paid her final expenses, notified her creditors that they wouldn’t be paid, and cleaned out the house for resale. The house was built in 1852 in the German/Dutch section of Albany and the main bearing beam in the cellar was a huge log! Coal ash remained in portions of the cellar and any new owner would have to make extensive improvements to bring the electrical, plumbing and heating systems up to code.

In Sept. 2006 the house was vandalized by thieves who stole all the copper plumbing pipes from the home. Judging by the extent of their “work,” it must have taken them several hours but neither the neighbors nor the police noticed anything. We paid to have the electrical service reinstalled because the thieves had wisely disconnected the grounding so that they would not be inconvenienced!

Near the end of my mother-in-law’s life the adjacent lot was filled and graded in such a way that all surface runoff drained into her basement. We helped her by taking digital photos and filing a complaint with the building & codes enforcement people of Albany. Part of her basement wall collapsed and she paid to have a friend rebuild the wall to try to shut off the gushing flow.

The City responded by citing my mother-in-law instead of the church! As if she had control over what happened on the adjacent lot!

When she called, a city employee explained that she was old … her house was old … and maybe she just shouldn’t make waves!

The house has been empty since the time of her death and we had one offer in 15 months. The offer of $22,000 was not sufficient to cover the existing mortgage of $18,000 plus expenses for settling her estate and paying the realtor and attorney. That contract fell through when the buyer was unable to secure a mortgage and we are now hoping to sell the property to an adjacent landowner for $18,000 if we can convince the bank which holds to the mortgage to accept a “short sell” of less than $17,700 that my mother-in-law owed on the property at the time of her death.

We would love to see this property returned to a rental property for 2 families in the South End, where it lies across the street from a park. The City of Albany has provided little to no assistance and actually thrown up roadblocks to renovating and rehabilitating properties in this area.

If Mayor Jennings and the City Council are serious about bringing market-rate housing back to areas like the South End, they’ll have to do a far better job than we have seen to date!

Meanwhile, we’re still hoping that somehow … someone … will rehabilitate this property to make it inhabitable and affordable to working class people. Anyone who is interested should call us at 482-7812.

#42 Stanley Axelrod! Posting at 1:00 a.m.! Don’t you have a job? Anyhow, you may want to research Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s position paper on urban blight / urban revival. His feelings are similiar to yours. I wholeheartedly endorse Joe Biden’s candidacy. I suggest you do the same.

Katie, I agree with you on that but would say our cities are becoming ghetto cities. The system moves too many people upstate to take advantage of the cheaper cost of living compared to NYC. What do you end up with, a lot of people who don’t give a hoot about most anything.

I refuse to go to Albany! Ghettos are a result of apathy and neglect by the very people who live there. The first step New York should initiate is to teach people how to maintain their residences, regardless if they rent, and to maintain their neighborhoods. I resided in Arbor Hill and back then the residents made sure their trash was removed on a timely basis, their broken windows were repaired by those who resided in that particular building, not the landlord. Responsibility, responsibility and responsibility by those who live in these areas.

I take all the ‘Historic Albany’ commentary with a grain of salt. I would like to see a poll conducted of the people that show up to protest the demolition of run down ‘historical’ buldings like the Wellington Hotel. I would guess that if there was a 100 year old building in their community (say Clifton Park) that was an eye sore and dangerous to leave standing and was preventing and discouraging any real investment in their community their would be no debate. The strutcture would be torn down before the 6:00 News. Meanwhile investors to Lark street and Washington Ave are made to jump through hoops to preserve things like a 100 year old facade in the name of preserving history. These outsiders have too much voice in the design and maintenance of these olde neighborhoods. If you asked residents of Arbor and the South End would they prefer a building to be raised so a business could be added as a source of jobs or the building should preserved with a sign recognizizing that ‘washington stayed at an Inn on this sight’ most would vote for the new building. Ghetto’s are created when the only there have no place to go. Those who can afford to get tired of fighting a losing battle and leave. At every level the numbers are availble, block by block, house by house who votes and who doesn’t. Until the residents of the South End and Arbor Hill demonstrate that they will vote for their interests at the polls nothing will change. No one wil respond to communities where maybe 10% bother to vote

I, too, grew up in Albany. I think my grandparents used to eat at the Boulevard Diner on Saturday nights. Imagine walking around there now? I, too, am embarrassed by the city. But whereas I see the residential problem as expensive yet solvable; I wonder about a bigger problem I don’t see discussed. It might be covered in Part II of the TU series: BIG BLIGHT–Albany’s Abandoned Industrial Buildings. Can we see an article on this please?

One reader commented that Albany should “bring in new wealth with corporate businesses, supply a Construction Trades School for self-rennovation and building/lot development” Well, I’d need some help understanding what corporate development officer is going to think twice about Albany if he/she sees the old Tobin Packing Company or the Central warehouse Building? These are surreal sites betokening the most dire urban blight. They are “Mad-Max bookends” at diagonal ends of a wasteland/uberslum. Much larger cities like Seattle do a much better job managing this problem. I’m aftraid small time politics–for which Albany is also famous– will need to find a way to get some big-time help on this. Good luck.

btw: I’ve lived out of state for many years. And it goes against my grain but I’m going up the Northway or out west a bit to get away from the blight when I retire.

There are too many abandoned houses in Albany. Slum landlords are allowed to keep these building under these conditions for what reason. Why are there so many properties up for auction? Why doesn’t the City go ahead and renovate/rehab these houses. Albany Housing Authority has been making a profit taking on these projects & some of them are not worth living in. Many of their projects are so run down. They are not putting any money to help improve them at all. I am aware of kick-backs – that is what the game is all about. I am thankful that Mr. Touhey is trying to help improve our neighborhoods.

I still can not believe that the People of Albany can still blame Jennings or any other Politician for the ruins of our Neighborhoods.
These are our Neighborhoods not theirs, fix them up, stop waiting and asking for someone else or someone else’s money to fix up your homes or Neighborhoods.
You live in these Neighborhoods if the house next door has a absentee Landlord, don’t just sit in the window and watch the crime and the liter call the City, call the police. Stop being afraid of your Neighborhood. It is yours. Whether you rent or own. It is yours. This is where you choose to live, raise your families. Our elected Officials are there, YES. But please if they start driving around and watching your neighborhoods, then you will start crying “Big Brother Watching”
Grow uo, Stop crying and begging for someone else to do the work for you…